Trade Policy and Economic Decline

In a book titled SELLING US OUT, J.R. Martin writes of Chinese companies “exploiting loopholes in the U.S.-China tax treaty signed by the Reagan administration in 1986.” He asks what the Founding Fathers would say about our current trade deficit, and our indebtedness to communist-ruled China. Martin asks, “What would Washington and Adams think about the corrupt and destructive power of the two major political parties in America? How would they judge today’s capitalism?”

Intelligence community: U.S. out as sole superpower by 2030

A new report by the intelligence community projects that the United States will no longer be the world’s only superpower by 2030.

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“Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds” — prepared by the office of the National Intelligence Council of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — projects that the “unipolar” world that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union will not continue.

Taxes and Economic Breakdown

Unfortunately, America is a country that increasingly believes that robbing from the rich is an acceptable expedient in financial hard times. Even if the country elects a new president this year, it will only prove to be a temporary reprieve. After all, both political parties are committed to the welfare state; and already that commitment is a prosperity-killer. Look at the national debt. Look at the number of businesses going under. There can be no economic recovery while the state continues to plunder the so-called “rich.” These same rich people invest their money, and that investment causes economic growth and creates jobs.

Our political system’s growing contempt for property rights must lead to the further breakdown of our economy. As with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the day will arrive when we can no longer afford to defend ourselves. In that event, a final act of assault and pillage could easily destroy our civilization altogether. If we are to avoid such a catastrophe, freedom must be our principle. A political policy of freedom must be upheld. As the Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Full article: Taxes and Economic Breakdown (JR Nyquist)

Niall Ferguson: China’s got the whole world in its hands

The big contradiction seems to be that a fifth of humanity is living under a communist one-party state within a free-wheeling capitalist economy – a conflict that, on the basis of history, should tear the country apart.

“The spectre of turmoil terrifies the leadership,” says Ferguson. “They face the challenge of managing a dynamic society and that is a real problem with real tensions. But I don’t buy the idea that China is about to implode or disintegrate.”

Harnessing the resurgent nationalism is part of the strategy to contain this threat. So is a policy of economic expansion overseas.

Why does this matter for the rest of the world? For one thing, Ferguson sees unnerving echoes in that mixture of shrill nationalism and overseas ambition of Germany a century ago.

China is already devouring two-fifths of the world’s coal, zinc, aluminium and copper. Now it is turning its attention to foreign territory for those basic natural resources. In Zambia, after Ferguson descends a Chinese-run copper mine, he muses: “Maybe this is the beginning of a world empire.”

Full article: Niall Ferguson: China’s got the whole world in its hands (The Telegraph)